Working Daze by John Zakour and Scott Roberts for January 21, 2018

Is that you, Hal?

Open the Pod Doors, Hal…

A hockey puck that sings old songs?

The Echo is actually trying to sing to his coffee cup.

For those that don’t get it, think song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGA-PAWoxEA

My son changed his hockey puck’s activation code to ‘echo’ vs ‘alexa’.

Every time I called the dog an @$$ho (the dog thinks it’s his nickname), it activated. I had tons of fun with it until Shawn figured it out.

Sure, bring something into your home that listens to very thing you say and sends it to a server run by people you don’t know. I’m sure they are all well intentioned and trustworthy. What could go wrong??

Having any device in your home or work or auto or wherever, that listens all the time to every thing that goes on there seems just a wee bit stupid to me… especially when it passes it all along to a server you don’t control and can’t access.

But then I feel the same way about smart phones, “smart” TVs and tablets that store all your personal info “in the cloud” – another phrase to describe servers you have no control over, nor direct access to.

Even if you do manage to encrypt your data, it’s still not controlled by you, it’s controlled by whomever owns or manages the servers. And, when they shut down, usually without warning, you lose it all.

And the number of, supposedly, tech savvy folks that use such surveillance devices and buy into “the cloud” is really scary. They really should know better.. and yet… it seems they don’t.

My wife asked me why I carry a gun in the house.I said “Government spies.”She laughed, I laughed, The Amazon Echo laughed.I shot the Echo. I laughed again.

That movie was released 50 years ago. FIFTY YEARS. Is it reasonable to expect your audience to get the reference?? You guys can be funny, but think “access.”